However cruelly the rocks of Massachusetts's South Shore have treated
storm-driven sailors, there can be no questioning the selflessness and
courage of the keepers and surfmen who played host to the no man's land
between frozen beach and gale-tossed sea. Read John Galluzzo's
enthralling account of the Life-Saving Service and meet legends like
Joshua James, whose surfboat, Nantasket, once saved twenty-nine men from
six boats in a grueling thirty-six hours. Chart a course through the
service s history, from its humble beginning in the refuge huts built
after the American Revolution until its absorption into the U.S. Coast
Guard in the twentieth century.